The Dangers of White Supremacy: Nazi Sterilization and Its Mixed-Race Adolescent Victims.

Mixed-race African German and Vietnamese German children were born around 1921, when troops drawn from the French colonial empire occupied the Rhineland. These children were forcibly sterilized in 1937. Racial anthropologists had denounced them as "Rhineland Bastards," collected details on them, and persuaded the Nazi public health authorities to sterilize 385 of them. One of the adolescents later gave public interviews about his experiences. Apart from Hans Hauck, very few are known by name, and little is known about how their sterilization affected their lives. None of the 385 received compensation from the German state, either as victims of coerced sterilization or as victims of Nazi medical research. The concerned human geneticists went unprosecuted. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(2):248-254. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306593).

Debilitated Lifeworlds: Women's Narratives of Forced Sterilization as Delinking from Reproductive Rights.

Peasant women in Cajamarca, Peru, who were sterilized by the Peruvian government in the 1990s, narrate their experiences of reproductive abuse using Andean medical principles of debilidad and fuerza (debility and strength) (Tapias 2006). In their narratives, many describe a generalized sense of loss of strength resulting from the procedure. This contrasts with the reproductive rights framework's emphasis on infertility as the main harm. In this article, I ponder the dissonance between these two frameworks and propose the concept of debilitated lifeworlds as decolonial feminist delinking (Mignolo 2007) from human fertility-centric narratives. This concept is methodologically significant as a decolonial attunement to local motifs to talk about abuse and for weaving a constellation of embodied, emotional, social, and family harms. This article contributes to the emerging field of "decolonial reproductive studies" (Smietana et al. 2018: 117).

"A Revolution in Favor of Reproduction"? Gynecology and Obstetrics in the "Third Reich".

During the "Third Reich," the majority of German gynecologists and obstetricians did not hesitate to put themselves at the service of those in power. In 1933, many gynecologists initially only focused on the fact that the biopolitical objectives of the National Socialists matched their own long-standing demands for population policy measures and the early detection and prevention of cancer. In addition, cooperating with the Nazis promised the political advancement of the profession, personal advantages, and the honorary title of Volksgesundheitsführer (national health leaders). As a result, gynecologists exchanged resources with the regime and thus contributed significantly to the implementation of the criminal racial policies of the Nazis. At the congresses of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gynäkologie (German Society of Gynecology) "non-Aryan" members, mostly of Jewish descent, were excluded, the law on forced sterilization of 1933 (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses/Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases) was scientifically legitimized, its implementation was propagated, and relevant surgical techniques were discussed with regard to their "certainty of success." In the course of these forced sterilizations, existing pregnancies were also terminated and the victims were misused for illegal scientific examinations or experiments. Drawing upon racial and utilitarian considerations, gynecologists did not even shy away from carrying out late abortions on forced laborers from the East during the Second World War, which were strictly prohibited even under the laws of the time. Some gynecologists carried out cruel experiments on humans in concentration camps, which primarily served their own careers and the biopolitical goals of those in power. The few times gynecologists did protest or resist was when the very interests of their profession seemed threatened, as in the dispute over home births and the rights of midwives. Social gynecological initiatives from the Weimar Republic, which were mainly supported and carried out by gynecologists persecuted for their Jewish descent since 1933, were either converted into National Socialist "education programs" or simply came to an end due to the exclusion of their initiators. German gynecologists had hoped for a large-scale promotion of the early detection of malignant diseases of the uterus and breasts, to which they had already made important contributions since the beginning of the 20th century. But even though the fight against cancer was allegedly one of the priorities of the Nazis, no comprehensive measures were taken. Still, a few locally limited initiatives to this end proved to be successful until well into the Second World War. In addition, German gynecologists established the modern concept of prenatal care and continued to advance endocrinological research and sterility therapy. After the end of the Nazi dictatorship, the historical guilt piled up during this period was suppressed and denied for decades. Its revision and processing only began in the 1990s.

[Forced Sterilizations in Thuringia and Wuerttemberg 1933-1945]. / Zwangssterilisationen in Thüringen und Württemberg 1933­1945.

Medical officers of public health departments played a key role in the implementation of the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases (July 14, 1933). They made many reports, filed a majority of applications for sterilization and acted as an expert or a judge in the Eugenics Court. This article presents accurate figures on the consequences of this law in Thuringia and Wuerttemberg and identifies the causes for the great differences between these 2 federal states.

[Oswald Bumke (1877-1950)-silence as resistance?] / Oswald Bumke (1877­1950) ­ Schweigen als Widerstand?

In 1924 Oswald Bumke was appointed as Emil Kraepelins successor to the Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Munich. After 1933 he was a promoting member of the SS and the National Socialist Teachers Federation but he was never a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). In 1933 he assumed the presidency of the Society of German Neurologists but only 2 years later he withdrew from the executive board because of scientific and personal differences with Ernst Rüdin, the new "strong man" of the merged Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists. After the end of WWII, Bumke affirmed that despite his exposed position as professor of psychiatry during the NS era, he had lacked any influence and that he had sabotaged the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" (GzVeN). He declared that for scientific reasons he had been extremely critical of the GzVeN and even had expressed his views in various publications. Nevertheless, he supported forced sterilization in his treatise "The State and Mental Diseases" published in 1939. His statement that the clinic in Munich had manipulated diagnoses in order to protect patients from eugenic measures and "euthanasia" refers to a potential interference, but as documents are lacking this cannot be substantiated. After 1940 Bumke functioned as a consulting military psychiatrist in expert reports. Political assessments from this period presented him as politically reliable. His biography exemplarily shows that a meticulous juxtaposition of post-war documents with correspondent records stemming from the Nazi period is imperative in order to arrive at a source-critical well-founded and differentiated evaluation.

[Austrian neurologists under the swastika: Julius Wagner-Jauregg-Walther Birkmayer-Franz Seitelberger]. / Österreichische Neurologen unter dem Hakenkreuz: Julius Wagner-Jauregg ­ Walther Birkmayer ­ Franz Seitelberger.

There were three Austrian neurologists with connections to neurology in National Socialism who have been honored by the German Neurological Society (DGN) or its predecessor organizations with honorary membership. From 1928 to 1934 Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940) was head of the Austrian Alliance for National Regeneration and the Study of Heredity; in at least two publications he advocated eugenic measures and racial hygienic positions as defined by Nazi ideology. As a former member of the Greater German People's Party (Großdeutsche Volkspartei), he applied for membership of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) a few months before his death. Walther Birkmayer (1910-1996) was an early member of the NSDAP, SA, SS and other Nazi organizations. As a staunch supporter of the "movement" he worked from 1938 in the Office of Racial Policy of the Gauleitung of Vienna. In lectures and publications he demanded or recommended forced sterilization for a number of neurological diseases. Due to the classification of his grandmother as "non-Aryan", he had to give up his party and university posts and served as a Wehrmacht physician. After some hard years immediately after the war, he was allowed to continue his career. As a co-discoverer of the effect of L­DOPA on parkinsonism, he was awarded numerous honorary doctorates and honorary memberships. Franz Seitelberger (1916-2007), a member of an SS unit during the Nazi era, benefited in his research work from the 1950s onwards from specimens obtained in the course of neuropathological "concomitant research" to Nazi "euthanasia". It is to be welcomed that the Austrian Society of Neurology (ÖGN) will soon start a historical project investigating open questions related to the Nazi era.

Involuntary Sterilisation, Eugenics, and Physician-assisted Dying: Lessons for New Zealand.

Opponents of physician-assisted dying (PAD) view it as modern eugenics and a significant risk to people with disabilities. The involuntary surgical sterilisation (ISS) of girls and young women with intellectual disabilities is an example of eugenics in practice. This article reviews the social and political attitudes toward ISS and PAD in New Zealand, England, and the United States. The attitudes were compared to determine if they demonstrated any indicators of potential PAD-related harm for people with intellectual disabilities. The research identified several issues, which need to be considered to ensure the safety of people with intellectual disabilities if New Zealand was to legalise PAD.

THE JEREMIAH METZGER LECTURE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF EUGENICS IN AMERICA: IMPLICATIONS FOR MEDICINE IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

In the first half of the 20th century, the US was swept up in a multifaceted movement to enhance the genetic makeup of the country's population. This eugenics movement, based on flawed scientific principles promulgated by Galton in the UK and Davenport in the US included legally mandated compulsory sterilization in 27 states in the US and sharply restricted immigration from many parts of the world. Compulsory sterilization legislation was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927. The American eugenics movement was a model for the compulsory sterilization implemented by the Nazis after they took power in Germany in 1933. The movement waned in America only following World War II when the US public became aware of the full extent of the Nazi Aryan racial superiority program. With the advent of major advances in molecular and cellular biology that are already being applied to clinical medicine in the 21st century, we have entered a new eugenics era. It is critical that we learn the lessons of our earlier eugenics movement if we are to avoid making the same flawed decisions now.

Reproductive rights violations: forced sterilization and restriction of voluntary sterilization.

OBJECTIVE: Introduction: realization of reproductive rights is a relevant medical, social and legal problem in modern society. It is due to unfavorable demographic situation in almost all European countries, overcrowding problems in Asian countries, religious and moral oppression against persons, who do not wish to realize their right to reproduction. The aim: To define problems related to the protection of the right to reproduction and to develop propositions to improve the prevention and fight against forced sterilization and restrictions on voluntary sterilization. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and methods: The research is based on theoretical basis, which includes scientific articles, legislation reviews, reports of non-governmental organizations, as well as empirical basis - 3 judgements of the ECHR, international legal acts and directives, based on the analytical data of the World Health Organization. Systematic, structural, functional and legal comparative methods, as well as systematization, analysis and synthesis, were crucial in the research process. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: Nowadays, it is possible to distinguish such types of sterilization in the world as voluntary and forced ones. Forced deprivation of the right to reproduction is a serious criminal offense that still takes place in modern society. Violations in the form of restricting voluntary sterilization have more latent nature and are not sufficiently regulated by legislation. Forced sterilization requires greater effectiveness in combating both at the national, and at the international level. Voluntary sterilization, as a method of contraception, requires clear regulation at the legislative level and the development of uniform principles and standards, both in national and in international law, in order to preclude restrictions in freely disposing reproduction function.

Eugenics and Involuntary Sterilization: 1907-2015.

In England during the late nineteenth century, intellectuals, especially Francis Galton, called for a variety of eugenic policies aimed at ensuring the health of the human species. In the United States, members of the Progressive movement embraced eugenic ideas, especially immigration restriction and sterilization. Indiana enacted the first eugenic sterilization law in 1907, and the US Supreme Court upheld such laws in 1927. State programs targeted institutionalized, mentally disabled women. Beginning in the late 1930s, proponents rationalized involuntary sterilization as protecting vulnerable women from unwanted pregnancy. By World War II, programs in the United States had sterilized approximately 60,000 persons. After the horrific revelations concerning Nazi eugenics (German Hereditary Health Courts approved at least 400,000 sterilization operations in less than a decade), eugenic sterilization programs in the United States declined rapidly. Simplistic eugenic thinking has faded, but coerced sterilization remains widespread, especially in China and India. In many parts of the world, involuntary sterilization is still intermittently used against minority groups.

Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California's Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920-1945.

OBJECTIVES: To compare population-based sterilization rates between Latinas/os and non-Latinas/os sterilized under California's eugenics law. METHODS: We used data from 17 362 forms recommending institutionalized patients for sterilization between 1920 and 1945. We abstracted patient gender, age, and institution of residence into a data set. We extracted data on institution populations from US Census microdata from 1920, 1930, and 1940 and interpolated between census years. We used Spanish surnames to identify Latinas/os in the absence of data on race/ethnicity. We used Poisson regression with a random effect for each patient's institution of residence to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and compare sterilization rates between Latinas/os and non-Latinas/os, stratifying on gender and adjusting for differences in age and year of sterilization. RESULTS: Latino men were more likely to be sterilized than were non-Latino men (IRR = 1.23; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15, 1.31), and Latina women experienced an even more disproportionate risk of sterilization relative to non-Latinas (IRR = 1.59; 95% CI = 1.48, 1.70). CONCLUSIONS: Eugenic sterilization laws were disproportionately applied to Latina/o patients, particularly Latina women and girls. Understanding historical injustices in public health can inform contemporary public health practice.

Legalised non-consensual sterilisation - eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 1: USA, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

In the late 19th century, eugenics, a pseudo-scientific doctrine based on an erroneous interpretation of the laws of heredity, swept across the industrialised world. Academics and other influential figures who promoted it convinced political stakeholders to enact laws authorising the sterilisation of people seen as 'social misfits'. The earliest sterilisation Act was enforced in Indiana, in 1907; most states in the USA followed suit and so did several countries, with dissimilar political regimes. The end of the Second World War saw the suspension of Nazi legislation in Germany, including that regulating coerced sterilisation. The year 1945 should have been the endpoint of these inhuman practices but, in the early post-war period, the existing sterilisation Acts were suspended solely in Germany and Austria. Only much later did certain countries concerned - not Japan so far - officially acknowledge the human rights violations committed, issue apologies and develop reparation schemes for the victims' benefit.

Legalised non-consensual sterilisation - eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 2: Europe.

This article deals with the nine European nations which legalised non-consensual sterilisation during the interwar years, thus completing the review, the first part of which was published in an earlier issue of this Journal. Like we did for North America, Japan and Mexico, countries concerned are addressed in chronological order, as practices in one of these influenced policies in others, involved later. For each, we assess the continuum of events up to the present time. The Swiss canton of Vaud was the first political entity in Europe to introduce a law on compulsory sterilisation of people with intellectual disability, in 1928. Vaud's sterilisation Act aimed at safeguarding against the abusive performance of these procedures. The purpose of the laws enforced later in eight other European countries (all five Nordic countries; Germany and, after its annexation by the latter, Austria; Estonia) was, on the contrary, to effect the sterilisation of large numbers of people considered a burden to society. Between 1933 and 1939, from 360,000 [corrected] to 400,000 residents (two-thirds of whom were women) were compulsorily sterilised in Nazi Germany. In Sweden, some 32,000 sterilisations carried out between 1935 and 1975 were involuntary. It might have been expected that after the Second World War ended and Nazi legislation was suspended in Germany and Austria, including that regulating coerced sterilisation, these inhuman practices would have been discontinued in all nations concerned; but this happened only decades later. More time still went by before the authorities in certain countries officially acknowledged the human rights violations committed, issued apologies and developed reparation schemes for the victims' benefit.

Court orders on procreation.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate judgments entered from 1913 to 2013 in the matters of compulsory sterilization. METHODS: Holdings and dispositions at the U.S. Appellate and Supreme courts are randomly located in LexisNexis using Shepard's symbols. Continuous variables are processed with the Mantel-Haenszel method. Court orders are used as units of analysis. RESULTS: The majority of cases (56.4 %) concern minors at a mean age of 11.7 years. Forty-four (80 %) petitions are filed by the parents or guardians; 11 (20 %) are parens patriae. Petitions for female sterilization are denied in 56.4 % cases under the Federal Laws (2 U.S.C. 431; 28 U.S.C; 29 U.S.C; 42 U.S.C; 424 U.S.), Procedural due process clause of the 14th Amendment, statutes, and common law precedents. Petitions for female sterilization are granted in 36.4 % cases under the statutory penal codes, the Law of the land, precedents, and the dicta. No significant associations are found between the parity and degree of mental impairment (r = 0.342). Substantial correlations are met between the gender, degree of impairment (r (2) = 0.724), and dispositions (r (2) = 802). The mean age of women is 20.78 years; the mean age of men is 30.25 years. Correlations fail to establish reasoning between the age of the subjects and the entered judgments (r (2) = 0. 356). CONCLUSIONS: (1) The female/male ratio (8:1) and age gap of the respondents indicate on a disproportionate impact of the statutes. (2) The procedure of sterilization in itself is incommensurate with equality, as the volume of surgery is uneven in males and females. (3) The case law is instructive with respect to which arguments have not been advanced. (4) Lastly, due to the etiological intricacy of mental impairment, with genetic transmission strikingly different in men and women, expert-witnesses ought to act in a medical vacuum because there is no mathematical certainty as to the transmission mode of the traits in question (exon and intron mutations, triplet repeat disorders, histone disorders, autosomal-dominant or autosomal-recessive transmission, sex chromosome-linkage, polygenomic imprinting, and organic reasons).

[The Homburg clinic for nervous diseases in the National Socialist Era. Special features in the Saarland border region]. / Die Homburger Nervenklinik im Nationalsozialismus. Besonderheiten in der saarländischen Grenzregion.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: When the National Socialists (NS) came to power in 1933, the German health care system was reorganized according to the principles of eugenics. Neuropsychiatric patients were victims of compulsory sterilisation and "euthanasia". As the Saar territory did not become part of the German Reich until the 1 March 1935, it is of special interest how quickly and completely NS health care policies were implemented. METHODS: The analysis is based on medical records of the Homburg State Hospital's (HSH) clinic for nervous diseases from 1929 to 1945 (n =7,816) found in the Saarland University Medical Centre. RESULTS: 1,452 patients were sterilised by force between 1935 and 1939 in the HSH. The most frequent diagnoses were congenital debility, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Some of the 441 Homburg patients who were transferred to other mental hospitals from 1939 to 1940 were killed in the context of "Aktion T4" and presumably in a nonsystematic manner. CONCLUSIONS: NS health care policies were implemented immediately after incorporation of the Saar territory in 1935. Physicians of the HSH were involved directly in compulsory sterilisation of neuropsychiatric patients. An initial intention to kill by the time of patient transfers from Homburg cannot be proven. Further research concerning the killing centres is necessary.

An Evil Hitherto Unchecked: Eugenics and the 1917 Ontario Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Mentally Defective and Feeble-Minded.

In 1917, the Ontario government appointed the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Mentally Defective and Feeble-Minded, headed by Justice Frank Hodgins. Its final report made wide-ranging recommendations regarding the segregation of feeble-minded individuals, restrictions on marriage, the improvement of psychiatric facilities, and the reform of the court system, all matters of great concern to the eugenics movement. At the same time, however, it refrained from using explicitly eugenic vocabulary and ignored the question of sterilization. This article explores the role the commission played in the trajectory of eugenics in Ontario (including the province's failure to pass sterilization legislation) and considers why its recommendations were disregarded.

[Bonhoeffer's position on sterilization of the mentally ill]. / Bonhoeffers Position zur Sterilisation psychisch Kranker.

UNLABELLED: Karl Bonhoeffer was head of the psychiatric department of the Charité University Hospital from 1912 to 1938 and in 1923 expressed his expert opinion for the Prussian Provincial Health Council regarding the demand of the Saxon physician Gustav Boeters for the implementation of a sterilization law. Bonhoeffer wrote that eugenic sterilization cannot be successful because only obvious bearers of severe forms of mental illness can be registered but not the carriers of hereditary illness factors if they only lead to mildly expressed forms of illness or even if the carriers remain without symptoms. However, after the adoption of the "law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases" in 1933 Bonhoeffer gave courses on hereditary health issues supporting the execution of the law. How should this change be understood going from a scientifically critical position against eugenically preventive sterilization of the mentally ill to acting as an expert advocate in discussions about hereditary health and thereby as a seeming protagonist, a coperpetrator and forerunner of National Socialist health policy? To understand this it seems necessary to consider the situation of that time which was increasingly dominated by a biologically and socially oriented medicine in connection with the eugenic movement. Then the effects and motives of Bonhoeffer's position toward sterilization will be questioned. Effects can be seen on the one hand in that the leading authority of the discipline apparently supported the execution of the law by giving courses on the subject and as an expert advocate and by that eliminating doubts in the justification of the law. On the other hand Bonhoeffer's "restrictive statements about eugenic sterilization…were used to support argumentation and precedence cases as a basis for cautious indications". It remains a fact that his expert judgments more frequently than not saved some mentally ill persons from sterilization but nonetheless demanded this of others. QUESTIONS: 1. Did Bonhoeffer accept eugenic sterilization as justified in cases of unequivocally inherited defects in mentally ill patients? 2. Why did Bonhoeffer not boycott the law in his realm of influence or make this rejection public by resignation? The answers will try to create an understanding for the behavior of an influential person, now seen as controversial, within the context of his time in order to sensitize those of us born later for the present effects in our own times.